Week in Pictures

Husband and I went out and picked pears on Sauvie Island as we do every summer, the day before the heat wave began. This year we decided not to can any whole pears so we “only” picked about 35-40 lbs of them so I can make my now-classic pear ginger preserves, our new favorite pear chai butter, and possibly some fruit rollups. YUMMMMM…

Just love this latest piece I spotted by the incredible Mark Fitz, one of our favorite artists. His art’s for sale HERE (ships internationally, including rad t-shirts)!

The garden is still going strong post-heatwave! From top left: roses are still blooming and happy; okra however is looking quite pathetic at less than a foot tall; carrots have gone WILD which is a first for us, so pretty I’m almost afraid to dig ’em up; sunflowers galore, with the tallest ones over 10 feet!; and cosmos, holy cow, usually demure and 3′ tall are literally as tall as our back fence. The bees are in heaven 🙂

And thankfully, with a nice day in the 70s today, I finally did some canning without passing out, so I’m about 30 lbs into the pears, making pear ginger preserves (pictured), pear chai sauce, and maple vanilla pear jam, the latter which I’m planning to turn into fruit rollups if this weather stays awesome for a couple more days. YUM! Shout out to my amazingly rad electric canner – every time I use it I’m so glad to have said goodbye to the sweaty stovetop pot and bought this!!